


Au 196.96

by miabicicletta



Category: Sherlock (TV), Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms
Genre: Angst, F/M, Hope in the Dark, Post S4E1: The Six Thatchers, Spoilers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-03
Updated: 2017-01-03
Packaged: 2018-09-14 09:39:19
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 877
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9174097
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/miabicicletta/pseuds/miabicicletta
Summary: Give him time. His heart is broken. All our hearts are broken. - MH





	

**Author's Note:**

> This just sort of happened. Written very fast. Unbetaed.

She arrives grim and guilty. Rosie’s cheeks are pink from the cold as he helps lift her from the BabyBjorn.

“Thanks,” Molly says.

“Have you–?” Sherlock starts.  

She sheds her coat, the backpack of baby things. “No. He won’t. Talk to me. Talk to anyone. He barely...” she gestures to Rosie, biting her lip. Concern and grief are writ large on his face.  

He nods. Turns to his goddaughter. “Hello, Rosamund. Where shall we pick up? I believe we left off at number 20?”  

She leaves him to his devices, half an ear listening as she warms a bottle on the hob. Sherlock wanders to his bedroom with their goddaughter in arms, muttering things softly. He trails around the flat for a while, saying things, not saying things, before he sits cross-legged on the floor in front of the couch, addressing Rosie as she looks around in wonder.

“-it is also the fifth-most-abundant dissolved ion in seawater by both molarity and mass, after sodium, chloride, magnesium, and sulfate. Free calcium metal, however, is too reactive to occur in nature in our terrestrial ecosystem, but is produced in the process of stellar nucleosynthesis. It is essential for living organisms, particularly in cell physiology where movement of the calcium ion into and out of the cytoplasm functions as a signal for many cellular processes. As a major material used in mineralization of bone, shells, and teeth–”

“Speaking of which.” Molly returns to the sitting room, bottle in hand. She sits at their side, on the couch. Sherlock nestles Rosie in her arms, and joins her.  

“You’re tired,” he says.  

She knows the unflattering picture she presents, working overnights at Barts and spending hectic days with her goddaughter. Dark circles have formed under her eyes. A limp, tangled ponytail trails down her back. Unwashed jumper. Wrinkled scrubs. And, god, she needs a shower. “She doesn’t sleep very much.”

“We have that in common.”

It’s too much, all of a sudden. She turns her face into her palm, shaking. She hiccups a small cry, trying to suppress it. Embarrassed at the emotional picture she presents, hating it, because he won’t know what to do. She loves these people, all of them, with all their flaws, but she is so _tired._

He wraps an arm around her, pulling her to him. Molly presses her face to his shoulder, shaking with silent sobs.

His chin rests on top of her head, and she doesn’t think she’s ever been so comforted, and so aggrieved in the same moment in all her life. 

She wipes her eyes. “God, Sherlock. What are we going to do?”

“I don’t know.” He passes her a tissue, and she wipes at her nose and eyes.

“I’m so sorry. I’m so sorry for everything. I can’t keep sneaking her around like this.” She wipes her eyes again. “It’s not fair,” she says miserably.

He swallows, folds his hands. “I know.”  

“It’s not fair to keep this from John. It’s not fair to keep you from your goddaughter when you did nothing wrong. None of this is fair.”

“It _was_ my respons—”

“No. It wasn’t.” She looks at him, sharp, insistent. “It _wasn’t._ Greg told me. He told me how she jumped in front of you. John is blaming you for something you had _no choice_ in.”

He leaps to his feet, paces before the mantle. “I pushed Vivian Norbury to her breaking point. For what? Deductions. I _made_ her shoot, Molly. Cause and effect. Action and consequence.”

She puts the bottle down. Stands with Rosie in one arm and reaches for his shoulder. “Mary _chose_ to protect you. I can’t fault her for that. I’d have done the same thing myself.” Swallowing, she slides her palm above his heart, stepping so close she is  _making_ him look her in the eye. “Whatever else happens, you have me. And Rosie. And Mrs. Hudson and Greg...And we love you, so much. So unbearably much, Sherlock.”

Between the pair of them, Rosie coos, and Rosie gurgles. For a time they are content to stare, grin, be transfixed by her innocence, by her smiles. 

“I never cared much about children.” He uses the past tense.

She squeezes his hand. “I have to be getting back.”

Molly pulls on her jacket. Her hat. The BabyBjorn. Sherlock helps her lift Rosie into it, fastening the straps just so. He cups the baby’s tiny skull in his palm. Molly lays her hand atop his. Leans up, and kisses _his_ cheek. “Please don’t stay away.”

He nods. She smiles, though it is more a facsimile of joy than sample of.

Molly and her goddaughter walk out into London, two motherless daughters making their own way in the world. At York Bridge, on the edge of Regent's Park, her phone pings.

_Thank you for today. Contrary to past events, I do not enjoy making you lie on my account. But I am grateful. - SH_

A pang of grief, as deep and resonant as ever.

 _Give him time. His heart is broken._ _All our hearts are broken, Sherlock. - MH_

_Yes. Yours, however, has the advantage of being comprised of Au 196.96 - SH_

_Thank you, Molly Hooper. - SH_

It takes her a half second, but she gets it.

_Gold._

**Author's Note:**

> Everything hurts and I'm dying. I hated this narrative cesspool of an episode and welcome Moftiss pulling the rug out and making us all feel silly BUT I DOUBT THEY WILL. 
> 
> In the meantime, these two are Rosie's godparents, for fuck's sake *dies of the one irredeemable bit of cuteness*
> 
> Calcium technical bits are slightly augmented from Wikipedia.


End file.
